


How Souls Catch Fire

by TerinAngel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Background Relationships, M/M, Minor Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 14:37:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7175954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerinAngel/pseuds/TerinAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eye contact: how souls catch fire. - Yahia Lababidi</p><p>Your Words are the first thing your soulmate says to you. The path you take to hear those Words isn't always easy - but after, you never have to walk that path alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Souls Catch Fire

Jango remembers that his Father’s Words had curled around his right wrist, the beginning and end of the sentence meeting flawlessly in precise, slanted handwriting. He remembers his Mother’s Words trailed down her neck, starting just behind her left ear and trailing down diagonally to her clavicle, in a loose scrawl that most would call messy but she insisted was artistic. He remembers his sister had a blur like him, only a straight line that began just below her left knee and almost reached her ankle, with no distinct style or phrase to be seen yet. 

It’s not until they’re all gone, until Jaster, that he learns what they are.

“Their you’re soulmate’s Words. It’s the first thing they say to you,” he explains as Jango curiously examines the short sentence in rigid writing on Jaster’s right bicep, ‘Keep your head down’ standing out in bold black Mando’a against his skin. “And they have the first Words you say to them, too.” He playfully muses Jango’s hair, drawing an indignant sound from the newly adopted Mandalorian. “Can’t wait to see what yours are going to be.” Jango’s hand instinctively drifts down his right flank, to where the line of his indistinct smudge curls almost possessively over the top of his hip bone. It’s a lucky placement, everyone who’d seen it said so. Right where a weapon would rest, on the side you gave to your most trusted man. Jango feels a small, true smile forming, and finds he agrees with Jaster.

He can’t wait. 

_____

Obi-wan has known what the smudged patch on his chest was for as long as he could remember. The crèche masters made sure that everyone who had one took a special class, to learn about soulmates, and Words, and what it would mean for them as Jedi. Attachment was not the Jedi way, but a soulmate was a gift from the Force, and those that had both ever walked a fine line, because to have Words was to be Attached in a way you could never break or control, but it was by the Will of the Force, and therefore to be revered and respected.

Honestly, it just made Obi-Wan’s head ache.

It didn’t matter much anymore, he supposed. He’d aged out. No Master had chosen him as a Padawan, so it didn’t matter that he had Words and the Force. No longer having to toe that fragile line between Attachment and the Code was possibly the only good that would come of this whole situation.

He can’t help but think of shortly after the smudge had first appeared, after he’d returned to the crèche after that first lesson on soulmates, to tell Bant everything he’d learned, because she didn’t have a smudge. She’d cooed and said it’s placement must be lucky, resting just over his heart. She thought it was romantic.

He wonders if his soulmate will think so too.

_____

Jango had almost convinced himself that the smudge where his Words were supposed to be didn’t matter anymore, when they finally decided to come in. 

Jaster was dead. Myles was dead. The True Mandalorians, his men, his brothers, were dead. And Jango himself was trapped, collared and leashed like an animal, in the bowls of a Spice ship. He was actually glad his words hadn’t come in before, hadn’t been there for the Slavers to see, and mock, and take from him forever. A guy in the pens with him hadn’t been so lucky, his Words coming in on the back of his left hand just hours before he was sold. Jango’s sure the man’s screams of pain and fear as the Words were burned off would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

He’d convinced himself it would be for the best his Words never came in – he didn’t deserve a soulmate to protect, if he couldn’t even protect himself.

It’s the middle of the day, or what passes for day in this hellhole, when the burning sensation begins, and it takes all of Jango’s control not to flinch, to touch, to stop and yank up his shirt enough to look, like every instinct he has is screaming at him to – except for the one that remembers the man in the pens, and a glimpse of delicate, curved writing, before pain, and horror, and despair. He continues working, even as the burning grows, and the skin where his Words are finally taking form becomes hyper sensitive. He continues working, even as cold dread sinks into his bones, because he knows he won’t be able to hide it, knows that if he’s quick and clever he might be able to read them, to know what they say, to get a taste of what is his before it’s gone, stolen from him like so many other things in his life have been. He works until the alarms trigger, signaling an attack on the ship, until the captain offers him his freedom for their lives, and then he has a blaster in his hands again, and his blood in roaring, and by the time his mind is clear again both crews lie dead.

They never knew what hit them.

_____

Obi-Wan feels it’s a bitter joke on the Force’s part that he sleeps through the appearance of his Words.

To be fair, the mission had been exhausting, even Master Qui-Gon had admitted as much before collapsing on his own sleeping couch with his boots still on. Obi-Wan had at least managed to lose his own footwear and his outer tunics before following his Master’s example, so he felt he could, perhaps, be forgiven for being completely unaware of one of the most important events of his life taking place. 

They both ended up sleeping far later into the day than they normally would have, and Obi-Wan ends up squinting his eyes open to the sight of the Courasanti sun peeking through his blinds and into his sanctuary. The urge to roll over, bury himself in his blankets, and not be moved for anything short of the High Council is only defeated by a combination of his body’s own needs, and the smell of Qui-Gon’s cooking migrating to his room from the kitchen. Extracting himself from his bed is a clumsy affair most unbefitting a Jedi, and he would deny it to his dying day, along with stumbling over his own gangly limbs as he entered the fresher. 

By the time he finally leaves his room, Qui-Gon has lunch set out on the table, tea brewing, and Obi-Wan is finally awake enough to begin to notice the strange sensation in his chest. It’s not until they’re half way through their meal that it hits him that the sensation isn’t in his chest, it’s on his chest, and he’s been absently rubbing the spot where his Words are supposed to come in for the past few minutes solid.

Qui-Gon looks startled when Obi-Wan suddenly pushes back from the table with his meal only half finished, but Obi-Wan is too concerned with getting his tunic off to ease his Master’s concern. He has to see. He has to be sure. He has to know, because if this is what he thinks it is then Bant is never going to let him live it down – 

Bold black Words now stood where his smudge once was, and Qui-Gon can’t help but laugh at his Padawan’s dumb-struck expression.

_____

Boba is six when Jango sees the dark smudge between his son’s shoulder blades.

He’d known it could happen, even though Boba was a clone, his clone. Some of the clone troopers were coming out of their decanting jars with smudged marks, others developing later, and a handful already had Words. It had frustrated the Kaminoan’s, as had Jango’s flat refusal to permit ‘reconditioning’ of clones with the marks, but so far they had only grumbled and gone back to their work, content to let the weight of an ‘imperfect product’ fall squarely on Jango’s shoulders.

Boba is a smart boy, even so young, and he seems to understand how much the explanation of the Words costs Jango when he takes his son aside and let’s Boba trace his fingers over his own Words, much like Jaster had for him. He’s quiet through Jango’s whole explanation, the lore, the history, and the old wives tales that make Boba’s mark placement even luckier than Jango’s. He’s quiet for so long after Jango is done that he begins to worry, before a very quiet, “When will you meet them,” almost makes Jango stop breathing. Boba is smart, and he knows his Father, knows that if Jango had met the person who was destined to say his Words, they would be here, a family, sharing this moment. Jango slowly inhales and pulls Boba into a hug.

“I don’t know, Boba. I don’t know.”

_____

“When do you think you’ll meet ‘em?” Obi-Wan sighs, resigned, because of course Anakin brings this up when Obi-Wan tries to direct the conversation away from their new task of protecting Senator Amidala from her would-be assassin’s. Anakin has been obsessed with Obi-Wan’s Words ever since he found out his Master had them too, the same afternoon he’d become Obi-Wan’s Padawan. That day certainly counted as one the most bazaar in Obi-Wan’s life so far – it was certainly not every day that your new nine year old Padawan marched up to you, dragging behind him the Queen of Naboo, before proudly showing off his own Words (or Word, rather – a single ‘What’ in sloped, elegant penmenship on his right ankle) and encouraged Padme Amidala to pull up her intricate sleeve to show hers (choppy letters dancing unevenly along her left inner forearm, forming the question ‘Are you an Angel’) and excitedly demanded to know if they meant what his mother had always assured him they meant, even as she pressed the need to keep his hidden.

Obi-Wan had since endured countless prods from his Padawan over the years to seek out the one who was meant to say his Words. And while his tenacity, optimism, and romanticism were admirable, Obi-Wan had had enough.

“I don’t know, Anakin. And no, I will not go looking for them. When we find each other, it will be the Will of the Force.”

Anakin pouted sullenly until the lift door opened to reveal his own soulmate, unsurprisingly waiting for them with a smile.

_____

Back on Kamino after the complete mayhem that had been Courasant, Jango felt the skin around his Words begin to heat, and for the first time in years he ran his own fingers over precise Words in Galactic Basic.

‘Your clones are very impressive, you must be very proud.’

_____

Exiting the cockpit of his fighter into the torrential downpour of a planet that, according the Archives, didn’t exist, Obi-Wan hesitated and brought his hand to rest over his heart, the skin around bold Mando’a Words heating uncomfortably.

‘I’m just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe.’


End file.
